Scars
by kclaura2003
Summary: Bethyl first kiss one-shot. After being reunited, Beth is self-conscious of her scar but Daryl still thinks she's beautiful. References to S5 trailer.


**Bethyl first kiss one-shot with references to the S5 trailer. **

**I do not own The Walking Dead.**

**Scars**

He finally gets a real moment alone with her after being reunited.

He'd been waiting for her older sister to leave, almost thinking she wasn't going to after being separated from each other for so long , but when he saw Maggie stand, say a few more words, nod her head and walk away, he knew this was his chance. It was going to be a long, hard road to D.C., with who knew what would lie ahead, and how many more chances for privacy there would be.

She was sitting by the low burning fire, her knees pulled up to her chest, her head slightly bent. As he approached, the sight of her there made him think of the first night they spent together, after the prison fell, when she tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to pull him out of his misery and encourage him to help her find the others. He remembered looking at her then like she was crazy; and more or less told her so outside the moonshine cabin he led her to.

Everyone we know is dead, he had bellowed at her. You don't know that, she had vehemently insisted.

Her optimism was like a candle in the darkness but he still didn't believe her. It wasn't until he saw Rick and Michonne being held up at gunpoint by the men he had fallen in with after Beth was taken that he knew she had been right and how foolish he had been. Looking at her now, her staring as blankly as he once did into the fire, he realized he was the one who was going to have to do the encouraging this time, despite not knowing where to start.

His boots made the grass crunch, which made her jump slightly, her hand instinctively going to the knife sheath she wore. She glanced over her shoulder, saw it was only him, lowered her eyes and quickly turned her attention back to the fire. He sat down carefully, feeling his heart sink a little when she angled her body slightly away from him. She doesn't want to talk to me, he solemnly figured. He was going to have to be the one to talk.

Daryl exhaled deeply. He ran his fingers through his hair, he picked at the dirt underneath his fingernails, folded and unfolded his legs until the awkward silence was too much and he quietly said:

"Please don't be mad at me, Beth,"

This seemed to surprise her, that he thought she was mad at him, because she slowly turned her body around but still kept her head down.

"I'm not mad at you," She replied.

She glanced up at him, looking at him with her blue eyes through loose blonde curly strands of hair. Her eyes and face lowered again and she looked away.

"Then why won't you look at me?" Daryl asked, immediately regretting the question because her shoulders began to tremble and she covered her face with her hands.

"You don't want to look at me, Daryl," She softly sobbed. "Trust me. I don't even want to look at me."

When they had found her, from the Cross people who took her, a gash had been inflicted on her left cheek. It was going to heal just fine but not without leaving a scar behind, a trace, a permanent reminder of what she had been through, what those people put her through.

She thinks I'll think she's ugly now, Daryl realized but it couldn't be any further away from the truth. She was the most beautiful person he'd ever known, inside and out, here in the apocalypse or back in the days gone by.

She was crying steadily now and he didn't know what to do or say. Should he tell her about his own scars on his back? Someday he would, now wasn't the appropriate time. What could he tell her to make her feel better? He could tell her he ran all night and half a day chasing the car that took her until his body couldn't take it anymore. He could tell her how he collapsed when the road split into four ways and would have stayed there, devastated, if Joe and his men hadn't come along and forced him to go with them. He could tell her how he was going to knife one of them when the guy antagonized him, indirectly, about her, only stopping because Joe came between them. Could he tell her what the gang of marauders tried to do to Rick, Michonne and Carl? When the thugs were killed, how could he even begin describe the sadness he felt when he told Rick she was gone. Should he admit that she had been right, they weren't the only survivors, and he had found them all, plus some new faces, despite being held captive with them in a boxcar at an old train depot, a place the people there called Terminus.

Hearing her cry now, he knew she has her own story to tell him, too . He wanted to know everything that happened to her since the last night they spent together at the funeral home, where over a dinner of pig's feet, diet cola and peanut butter and jelly, she asked him what made him change his mind about there being still good people in the world . At first, he tried to shrug her off, but Beth was a Greene, stubborn Irish blood running through her veins, and she wasn't going to take a mumbling "I don't know," for an answer. Gazing into her eyes, her sweet face illuminated by the flicking candles on the table, he didn't answer but knew she figured it out when breathed a surprised: "Oh," Should he finally answer that question for real now?

"Beth," He said. He scooted closer to her and he gently placed his hand on her shoulder. She didn't resist him, but she still refused to look him in eye.

"Beth," He tried again. "Look at me, please."

"I…" Her crying had ceased, replaced by sniffling. "I…can't. I…look like a freak."

Without daring to take even a second to think about it, out of fear he'd talk himself out of it, he tentatively brushed her face with the back of his rough, dry hand. He cupped her chin and titled it upward, forcing her to face him. Her blue eyes, reddened from the crying, widened in surprise at such a bold gesture, coming from him.

He watched her watching him as his thumb carefully traced the length of the scar on her cheek; her lips parted then closed like she was going to say something but changed her mind and instead just stared back at him like she did that night in the funeral home.

"You still wanna know what changed my mind?" He asked, his thumb still caressing her scar back and forth, a wordless way of saying she did not look like a freak. She was beautiful and always would be in his eyes.

At first, her brow wrinkled, she looked confused and then it dawned on her, the first smile since being reunited with everybody slowly spreading across her face. He felt the corner of his mouth curl up into a grin, too. By now Rick, Maggie and others knew they had got out together when the prison fell, they knew they were together for a while, but what they'd never really know was the things between them now; the moonshine cabin and the funeral home; those places, the things they shared together in those places that would always special between him and her.

Without any more hesitation, he leaned in and pressed his lips on hers. He knew his kiss was going to be a bit rusty, but kissing was like riding a bicycle, you can never really forget, no matter how long it has been.

It was a soft, chaste kiss; he didn't want to be too aggressive with her. When he pulled away, her eyes were still closed and when they fluttered open, he thought maybe he made a mistake; he shouldn't have done that, he went too far. She doesn't feel the same way about me as I do about her, he internally scolded himself.

He gulped and it was now him who felt too ashamed to make eye contact. He looked away, only to his surprise, he felt her hands on both sides of his scruffy face, turning him back to her.

She kissed him this time making his heart skip a beat; she returned the same feelings he was unable to verbalize that night in the funeral home. He returned the kiss, now knowing without a shadow of a doubt that she was his girl now. His hands slowly slid over her hips and he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her to him, holding her close. He was shocking himself at his own behavior, he'd never been this forward with a woman before , but he realized he didn't care anymore. He was a man in hopelessly love and for the first time in his all his life.

**Thanks for reading and I always appreciate feedback!**

**I'm not sure who would initiate the first kiss in this pairing. In a lot of fics, it's usually Beth and it's probably more likely she'll be the one to initiate it but I can't help myself...I'm old fashioned and find it much more romantic when the guy makes the first move. I think it's possible Daryl just might, even if he is "Nervous and In Love". :P**


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